I always knew that it was blind ambition, intuition and lack of experience which brought all of us punk rockers together. A magical musical continuity of anger and emotional explosions !

The guys from my youthful punk days are always with me. They have made such an impression on my life. At the time I had something to offer them too. A Fanzine was a way to meet the bands. A way for punkers to promote their bands and communicate with their fans. As a journalist I had a lot to offer these youthful punks. I loved every second and I took their attention to heart. A “wild fire” of creativity, freedom and rebellion. In the 1980s it was a tight scene backstage. I became intimate with many of the players. This is the world in which I met Ross.

It was some 20 years later, around 2004, a lot of my punk memories came back to me. In the 1990s I suppressed these memories, due to having babies and going back to university. My blood resurrected these memories in powerful dreams and walking reflections of regret.

At that time, I had a reaquiering dream about GBH touring in Kansas City. This Birmingham UK band has traveled throughout the United States more than most US Citizens. Anyway, in my dream they get pulled into danger by a tornado. Yet, regardless they play the large auditorium show filled with punks. When I heard the song Stormchaser on their Punk Junkies CD, I was excited to hear it because the song now heightens my dream.

I was also thrilled and proud to find out that Ross was coming out with a book. After 2009 a punk rock nostalgia exploded in the world. Ross’s book was just at the beginning of this strange nostalgia. I ordered the book internationally and it was at the house within the week.

I love the honesty of Ross’s memoir. He outlines the early punk scene to the present time, and he correlates this to his life. Ross does not shy away from anything; the heights of joy to the depth of depression; as it was for many of us punks, it was a matter of the right ‘time and place’ for falling into the punk scene. The same goes for Ross getting into a band like GBH. It’s all about a bass guitar and a young punk.

“…It’s a difficult balance, seeming keen without looking desperate. Reminding people, you’re there without getting on their tits. And I guess I must have got it about right, because after a few months, when Sean left, Jock phoned me up and asked me if I fancied joining the band. You up for that, Ross? They needed a new bassist…” ~ Pg. 48

Innocence resonates throughout Ross’s book. From his years as british youth to years later finding love in Hawaii. Ross echoes his mistakes, and regrets. He also tells the story of integrity as a punk with a solid underground identity. I surprisingly read that (Charged) GBH shunned MTV because they would not kiss ass; and ignored Metallica because they were heavy metal long hairs.

As any acid trip, Ross had one that defines the bravery of a generation. A creative, awake and musically inspired underground generation!

“… This went on for hours. More and more of the same. It was incredibly intense. God and Jimi and Anne Carpenter and the devil and the fucking taxi driver, fighting over my soul right up to the point I passed out in exhaustion…’ ~ Pg. 121

City Baby, from Highgate to Hawaii…life and GBH. has had reprints since 2013. A popular book that is a hell of a lot of fun to read too. The book is becoming a punk classic and is as unique as Ross. I vote for him, the ambassador of PUNK ROCK!

“…rushing for a pint of Guinness, and even then they don’t really seem to help. This is just a flesh wound. And it’s on my picking hand, which somehow has two working fingers, which means I can play bass. So, no. I won’t go to hospital. I’ll play punk instead.” ~ Pg. 240

Steve Pottinger interviewed Ross and is the ghost writer of this book. Mr. Pottinger is also a poet and can be reached at http://stevepottinger.co.uk/ .

QUOTES :

Stop thinking about art works as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences. (Roy Ascott’s phrase.) That solves a lot of problems: we don’t have to argue whether photographs are art, or whether performances are art, or whether Carl Andre’s bricks or Andrew Serranos’s piss or Little Richard’s ‘Long Tall Sally’ are art, because we say, ‘Art is something that happens, a process, not a quality, and all sorts of things can make it happen.’ … [W]hat makes a work of art ‘good’ for you is not something that is already ‘inside’ it, but something that happens inside you — so the value of the work lies in the degree to which it can help you have the kind of experience that you call art.

“Scientists know that electromagnetic waves carry information. Radio waves are a common example of how information is sent out via electromagnetic waves. The waves that your heart and brain generate carry information that is sent through your body and out into the space around you, just like a radio transmitter. Yet the heart’s signals have much more power.” – The HeartMath Story, as Told by Founder Doc Childre

I’ve heard it said that the soul doesn’t live inside our body but that it is more like a womb in which we are contained.

“This disco guy wanted funk in our sound with 10,000 backing vocals, the guy laughed at Tony when he tried to sing, they treated us like shit. Casey wanted to hit that engineer dick…Posh Boy told us not to play games with him, he’d play games with us. That engineer was a real dick.”

~ Steve Soto ADOLESCENTS
__________________________________

In our over psychological culture, psychological testing substitutes for this seasoned eye and prevents its development. Instead of looking, we test; instead of imaginative insight, we read write-ups; instead of interviews, inventories; instead of stories, scores. Psychology assumes it can get at character by probing motivations, reaction responses, choices, and projections. It uses concepts and numbers to access the soul, rather than relying on the anomalous eye of a practiced observer.

Hillman, James. The Force of Character: And the Lasting Life (Kindle Locations 844-847). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

———————————————————

It is the prime task of a truly modern mind to endure both the spiritual and the practical as the framework for her life.

Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.

~Truman Capote
…………………………………………………………………

“And just as the soul that is inside your dust.”

~ Pg 8 The Divine Comedy ~ Dante
…………………………………………………………………

“I always liked the intensity of the recording.”

~ Chris Bailey from the band The Saints
………………………………………………………………….

“Sometimes people try and tell me what is and isn’t punk, or that GBH do or don’t fit in, but they’re generally no older than my socks, and they know about as much. I’ve lived my life doing what I want the way I want to ever since I got expelled from school. Ever since 1977….That’s punk rock”

~ Ross Lomas: From his Book City Baby.
…………………………………………………………………..

“As I was walking among the fires of Hell,
delighted with the enjoyments of Genius;
which to Angels look like torment and insanity.
I collected some of their Proverbs. ”

My Community

Search for:

HEY YOU !! My Intellectual property

Please if you take anything from this site please tag hudleyflipside.com as the source of this material. NOTICE this is all copyright material Hudley Flipside (aka Hud) and Hudley Mantis…. most importantly ‘Hudley’ is the pen name and pseudonym created by (me) Holly Duval Cornell.